Atlas Games - Statosphere: Unknown Armies

Welcome to the Statosphere

Thanks for joining the Invisible Clergy as an Unknown Armies creator. We’ve compiled a few tips on how to get the most out of your content for the Statosphere to help you be as successful as possible and nail that UA tone for your new audience.

Ground Rules

Before you even get started, here’s everything you need to know about avoiding taboos and making informed decisions about what to create.

What’s available to use in Statosphere content?

Your work can use any rules and setting materials from the Unknown Armies 3rd edition books by Atlas Games:

Book One: Play

Book Two: Run

Book Three: Reveal

Book Four: Expose

Book Five: Mine

We’re going to share design templates and other tools which you’re free to make use of. The Statosphere is a community resource, a cabal of creators always changing. So long as you properly credit their work, go ahead and use the characters, settings, creatures, and rules you find in other Statosphere creator’s works. You might want to drop a GMC into a scenario you put together, or give a GMC in a location you’re designing an adept identity based on a magickal tradition another writer has posted. You can even propose alternate rules or new takes on this stuff, but remember to do it in the spirit of community.

Previous editions of Unknown Armies are fair game for conversions, updates, and so on. Don’t see an avatar in the books but used to love it in a UA2 supplement? Go ahead and post the new version. We love to see this work, which is why we did Book Five: Mine the way we did.

What can’t I use in my Statosphere content?

We’re only accepting content for the new edition, which means that you’re welcome to update older edition content, but we can’t accept anything written specifically for the previous UA editions. It’s possible your content won’t have any game mechanics at all, and just be straight-up setting content, and that’s usable by folks playing the older editions, but we want the Statosphere to be a place for the game as it is now.

We also won’t accept fan conversions of UA into other game systems or rules. Don’t submit content that converts other intellectual property (like other roleplaying games, or television or movies) into UA. You can file off some serial numbers, but you don’t want to invite legal problems and we want to continue to be a source for Unknown Armies content.

What types of content are prohibited?

You’d think that with a game like Unknown Armies, anything goes as far as content. And you’re not far wrong, because the game is aimed at a mature audience, but even we don’t cross certain lines most of the time. Antagonists and creatures can be vile and awful, but there must always be a clear distinction between the malignant fiction you present and your own text. Avoid publishing anything racist, homophobic, discriminatory, or otherwise repugnant; using depictions or descriptions of criminal violence against children; rape or other acts of criminal perversion; or other obscene material without the express written permission of Atlas Games.

We’ve also tried hard in the new edition to be more inclusive, so we encourage you to keep in mind the entire smorgasbord of human endeavor and expression in your works, just as we do.

Can I create and sell content for older editions of Unknown Armies?

We’re only accepting content designed for the third edition. If there’s something from the older editions that you really like, update it to the new one and share it here with the community.

Can I copy information from UA rulebooks into my Statosphere content?

You’re free to reference the text of official UA products, but please don’t copy things outright unless you absolutely need to do so. In general, your text should be your original work.

Can I use iconic GMCs in my Statosphere pieces, like the Comte, the Sleepers, or GNOMON?

Sure, go ahead.

Can I publish other materials to the Statosphere, like artwork, comics, a custom card deck, or an app?

For right now we’re only accepting RPG content.

Proper Legal Attribution

The Statosphere logo must appear on the cover of your work. It must be discernible and legible at normal full-screen viewing size, but does not need to be large and should not be the primary logo or title on the cover.

You may not use the trade dress affiliated with the Unknown Armies RPG, other Atlas Games titles, or the Atlas Games logo except as provided in the templates and logos here.

The following text must appear within your product, wherever the work otherwise lists legal and copyright information:

This product was created under license. Unknown Armies is a trademark of Greg Stolze and John Tynes, used under license by Trident, Inc., d/b/a Atlas Games.

This work contains material that is copyright Atlas Games and/or other authors. Such material is used with permission under the Community Content Agreement for the Statosphere UACC.

All other original material in this work is copyright [2017] by [your legal name or company name] and published under the Community Content Agreement for the Statosphere UACC.

All Statosphere UACC content using Atlas Games property must include the following on the cover:

In the Product Description field when setting up the title on DriveThruRPG, you must include:

Requires Unknown Armies (Third Edition) from Atlas Games.

Writing and Designing Statosphere Content

We hope to attract a lot of creators just like you to the Statosphere, so even though you may have a swell new archetype or a delicious chunk of scenario meat to dangle in front of UA fans, there’s a challenge in getting your content seen and heard. Here’s some suggestions for how to make that work.

Design & Layout

Unknown Armies may be all about horrific and disturbing threat to human consciousness and so on, but that doesn’t mean your design should be a stress check to the Unnatural. Use a reasonable sized font, don’t cramp your text together, and generally just try to have your content be easy to read and digest.

To create a consistent look and feel for Statosphere content, and give you a place to start, we’ve got some basic InDesign and Word templates ready for you to use. You’ll find these in the “Resources for Creators” section.

How do I write like Greg or John?

Honestly, we don’t suggest you try to mimic the Unknown Armies writing style unless you really want to. The Statosphere is all about other voices and your own creative visions of the world of UA, so be yourself, and write what you want to write.

That said, if you spend a few hours reading through the rulebooks we think you’ll get a good sense of what UA readers expect.

Quality over Quantity

Unknown Armies readers appreciate concision as well as content, so don’t feel as if you should pad out a piece with a lot of unnecessary text. In fact, don’t do that — only include what you need to make your content usable by others and strike the right tone for any reader. When in doubt, review the length of things like archetypes, adepts, and otherspaces in the UA3 rulebooks for a good estimate on how long is reasonable.

Art

Unknown Armies now exclusively uses photographic images and photo-manipulated art, and we strongly encourage that you do, too. Shopping around on stock photo sites often turns up some seriously strange images, and that might even inspire you to create other content. Just make sure that you have clearance to use the images in question, either by purchasing the stock art, securing creative commons licenses, or by taking the photos yourself.

We may provide stock photo packages in the future, which any creator can freely use for Statosphere projects. Please note that art used in the Unknown Armies rulebooks and the art used in other creator’s content is not automatically available for your own use in making new content. If you want to make your images available, please be sure to make this clear in your content’s legal section.

Proofreading

The first thing somebody’s going to do if they see a typo or format error in your work is make a lot of noise about it, so do yourself a favor and check your content thoroughly before you submit it to the Statosphere. Get more than just your own eyes on it — a lot of times, your friends are more than happy to point out your mistakes, so squeeze that impulse a little for your benefit. If in doubt, compare spelling or formatting of certain words, game terms, character names, or other elements to the UA3 rules. Do yours match? Great. Are yours different? Change ‘em.

Pricing

It’s up to you to decide how much you’d like to charge for your Statosphere content (free or Pay What You Want is an option as well). Check out other submissions to get a sense of pricing norms, and feel free to scope out other community-created content programs.

Letting the Ponies Know

So, you’ve uploaded your piece to the Statosphere? What’s next?

Some folks might browse the Statosphere page here for what’s new, but don’t count on that being the only way your stuff gets discovered. Share on Facebook and Twitter to let your friends know what you’ve created. If you tag Atlas Games in to your social media posts, we can share that far and wide, as well.